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Biotech / Medical : Ligand (LGND) Breakout! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Henry Niman who wrote (10960)	11/11/1997 3:47:00 AM
From: Andrew H	Respond to of 32384

Henry, looks like estrogen replacement therapy may be obsolete in a few years. I can't believe the lead experimenter is ready to use the technique "on women right away." Some of these scientists are truly mad!! Still the ways in which nature is being changed are truly phenomenal. >>LONDON - Harvard scientists experimenting with mice have found a way to keep ovaries from dying, thus blocking the onset of menopause. London's Sunday Times reported that scientists at the Harvard Medical School discovered an application of two chemical agents called fumonisim-B1, a fungal toxin, and sphingosine-1-phosphate, that stops cells in the ovaries from dying. The research will be published next week in the scientific journal Nature Medicine, the newspaper said. There was no immediate reaction to the report from Harvard. While the report noted that the research is still at the experimental stage, project leader Jonathan Tilly said the results with mice were so good the technique could be used on women right away. ''Hormone replacement therapy will become a thing of the past because the implant would preserve ovarian function,'' Tilly said. ''The results are so striking that in a perfect world we would take it into clinics right now.'' In a statement issued today by Massachusetts General Hospital, where Tilly is associate director of the Vincent Center for Reproductive Biology, Tilly added: ''It is our hope that this work could lead to new knowledge about the normal death of egg cells that occurs throughout a woman's life - starting before birth and eventually leading to menopause. ''However, any application of this work toward altering the course of normal menopause is totally speculative at this point.'' Under hormone replacement therapy, many women take estrogen, a natural reproductive hormone, to help them avoid hot flashes during menopause. Women also take estrogen after menopause to prevent heart disease and osteoporosis. The scientists were trying to preserve fertility in cancer patients. Cancer treatment often makes young women infertile, stopping the ovaries from producing estrogen and bringing on early menopause. The Sunday Times said the technique also offers women the prospect of being permanently fertile.<<